


San Miguel de Velasco

by wildechilde17



Series: The business trilogy [12]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Advent Calendar, F/M, Mission Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-08
Updated: 2016-12-08
Packaged: 2018-09-07 07:27:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8788978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildechilde17/pseuds/wildechilde17
Summary: 6th day of the Clintasha Advent fics: Missions





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Trammel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trammel/gifts), [Superherofan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Superherofan/gifts), [DCMarvelWriter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DCMarvelWriter/gifts).



He doesn’t know she hit her head until she giggles. Natasha Romanoff, the Slavic shadow, giggles, once, just loud enough that he hears her. 

“The mission,” she says.

“Nat?” He’s certain he couldn’t have heard the giggle. “Nat, you did good. You got the intel.”

He gets out of the cab of the dusty jeep.  It’s a shitbox of a car, cost shitload and it won’t resell.  Someone is San Miguel De Velasco just got a Canastón de fin de Año' courtesy of SHIELD.  

She’s leaning against her door, her hair pulled back from her face with a dirty bandana. “The mission to the mission,” she mutters.

“Nat?”

“We got a mission, we go to the mission,” she says sounding like she’s very far away.

“Hey Nat,” he repeats again, slipping his arm under hers and drawing her away from the car.  “The team will be here in 52 minutes.  We’re good.” He lets her go to grab the backpack from behind her seat. It looks like an ordinary tourist backpack. Looks like. “Pretend tourists. Then home.”

She starts humming, [something](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zL7CDcVQjbM) long, familiar and almost aching, almost haunting, totally inappropriate.

“Romanoff?” he repeats.  Her eyes remain fixed on the middle distance.

She just begins to smile. It’s wrong. He’s seen her smile before on ops, generally not dressed up as someone backpacking through South America.  She smiles at rich powerful men, she smiles at doctors, military men, lawyers and mousey accountant who know too much. She doesn’t smile at him. 

She hums still, smiling like she’s happy to see him.

It’s wrong and he can’t quite place why it’s wrong.

And then he does. 

She is smiling.

No one else is wearing her skin, she isn’t faking her way through social negotiations, Natasha Romanoff is smiling.

He’s seen her smirk when he hits the floor sparing with Hill or May.  He’s seen her not look actively annoyed by him. He seen her so immersed in a dog eared novel some other agent left behind that she doesn’t stop herself licking bad pasta sauce from her bottom lip. He seen her let her guard down long enough to wince in front of him and he counted that as his biggest win to date.

He has never seen her smile like this.

And she’s still humming. 

Shit.

He drags her through the open square and into the wood and adobe church.

It’s elaborate inside but the air is still with very few people taking in the world heritage site.  He stops and dips a finger in the holy water making at attempt at a cross in case the few congregants look their way.

She has stopped humming. She rocks very slightly against his right hand attempting to hold her in place. 

He steers her towards a back pew, nudging her along until they can sit behind a pole and then he is running his hands through her hair trying not to remember a rooftop in Belfast. 

He doesn’t swear when his hand feels damp.  He draws it out slowly, seeing the bright red oxygenated blood on his fingertips.  He checks his watch.  49 minutes is a very long time all of a sudden.

He can’t actively check the rest of her, not in a church. He grabs her wrist, pressing his fingers into the translucent skin at the base of her palm.  Her pulse is fast.

“I hit my head,” she says suddenly.

He pulls the bandana away from her hair and bundles it up in a ring in his hand before pushing it back into the head wound.

“No shit,” he agrees lowly. “We had an agreement, Nat.  You tell me if you’re injured.”

“Told you,” she says, but her eyes are glazed over and her hand is trembling trying to take a hold of the makeshift pressure bandage.

“You injured anywhere else?”

“There was a tornado and I hid in a costume box,” she whispers. It’s something he told her, a story he appropriated, a mile marker in their partnership.

“Romanoff,” he says cupping her face until she tries to look at him. “Listen to me, we are outbound. The job is done. You stay awake and you stay alive until we are with medical.” 

“I told you,” she slurs. “You are my partner so I told you.” 

“Yeah, you did, Tasha. You did good.”

**Author's Note:**

> This one occurs before any of the events of the business trilogy, though not before some of the things that Clint has 'dreamt' about. Click on the underlined text to hear what Natasha is humming


End file.
